Just released as a limited-edition gatefold double Lp by 20 Buck Spin, and also back in stock on CD via Profound Lore...

A lot of ears were turned on to the Alabama-based doom metal band Pallbearer back in 2010 when the band released their demo, a three-song dose of epic doom that included a cover of "Szomorú Vasárnap" ("Gloomy Sunday") by Hungarian composer Rezső Seress. That demo had people comparing Pallbearer to such titans of epic doom as Candlemass and Warning, and the praise was well-deserved; Pallbearer were capable of crafting immensely heavy music with catchy, moving hooks and amazing vocal melodies and displayed incredible songwriting chops. Everyone who loved that demo had been anxiously awaiting their first album, and Sorrow And Extinction lived up to all of the expectations and then some, appearing earlier this year on Profound Lore and delivering one of the best doom metal experiences in recent memory.

When the album opens, we are greeted by softly strummed acoustic guitar that creaks and scrapes beneath the fingers of the player, a sorrowful and fragile melody that feels almost funereal even as a bluesy twang enters into it, but when the full band finally drops in after a few minutes, you're blown back by the force of their majestic slow-mo metal. That first song "Foreigner" sets up the feel of the rest of the album, presenting a traditional doom metal sound with a unique melodic style that'll stick these songs in your skull for a quite awhile. The likes of Candlemass, Warning and Solitude Aeturnus are clearly an influence on Pallbearer's brand of doom, but the vocal melodies and hooks sound totally unique in the hands of frontman Brett Campbell, whose voice is a perfect mix of soulful emotion and dourness, drifting over Pallbearer's tectonic metal using multi-part harmonies to add a powerful, almost anthemic feel to their choruses. There's a couple of spots on that first song where they sound like a doom-metal version of a Kansas song, and it's pretty goddamn fantastic. No slouching on the heaviness, either; the riffs on this album are armored in lead, massive molten Sabbathian hooks crushing everything underfoot, with just the right amount of "swing" without taking anything away from the mournful, terminally downcast vibe of their music.

These guys are continuously compared to Yob due to the distinctive vocals and the sheer skull-caving heaviness, but Pallbearer sounds much more "classical" than their label-mates, infecting their old-school approach with slight hints of progressive rock and funereal psychedelia to produce what might be the doom album of 2012. Highly recommended!

Part of the exhaustive History Of Violence reissue series from Bloodlust!, this re-mastered redux of Slogun's evil power electronics masterwork Will To Kill is one of my favorite albums from John Balistreri's "true crime electronics" outfit, one of the key architects of crushing American power electronics.

Originally released on cassette by Bloodlust! and Balistreri's own Circle Of Shit imprint back in 1996, Will To Kill is a titanic belch of hellish gas and acid from the bowels of Hell. Slogun has always been one of the heaviest American electronics artists, not just because of his relentlessly misanthropic outlook but also because the guy creates some of the most violent, bass-heavy electronic soundscapes around. When the first track "Kraft" kicks in, it just rolls over you like a bulldozer with it's crushing whoosh of radioactive winds and distorted synth drones. The klaxon warning chirps that come in later just make this sound even more like the final minutes before the thermonuclear wave hits. The other tracks on Will To Kill tend to maintain a similar level of brute destructive power, though there's plenty of atmospheric passages too, like the rumbling deep-space drones and smoldering noise on "Blood", which resembles something from Japanese cosmos-destroyers CCCC more than a typical PE outburst. On the other hand, "Street Cleaner" viciously blasts off into a killswarm of mangled radio transmissions, murderous distorted whispers ("....listen to me...listen to me...), dense distorted black winds buffet the speakers, a repulsively brain-melting blast of black electronics. Following electro-attacks like "Mindhunter" and "Trolling" are no less carnivorous, reveling in the bliss of predatory behaviors as a rain of acid feedback and wall-like distortion falls to earth. It's all a black seething mass of psychedelic electronic violence and total terror that climaxes with the serial killing mantra "Trash", an ode to Gary Ridgway aka the "Green River Killer".

Essential for anyone into Slogun's brutal electronics and the murderous extremes of underground industrial/noise.